Apple doesn’t believe NPD’s survey showing Android’s US lead over the iPhone in the first quarter of 2010. Judging by a recent comment made by a spokesperson for the Cupertino firm, the company is rejecting NPD’s survey and instead insisting on the iPhone’s global lead over Android.

It all begun when NPD posted the latest smartphone market share survey yesterday, shown below. If NPD’s research is accurate as they claim, Google’s Android overtook the iPhone as the #2 domestic smartphone platform, with 28 percent market share in the first three months of 2010 versus the iPhone’s 21 percent. NPD attributed a sudden change to an aggressive marketing push on Google’s and Verizon’s part and a much broader availability of multiple Android handsets sold by a multitude of carriers.

This is a very limited report on 150,000 US consumers responding to an online survey and does not account for the more than 85 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. IDC figures show that iPhone has 16.1 percent of the smartphone market and growing, far outselling Android on a worldwide basis. We had a record quarter with iPhone sales growing by 131 percent and with our new iPhone OS 4.0 software coming this summer, we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.

Christian’s Opinion

It’s not that a single market survey upset Apple so much, it’s the headlines like Fortune’s “Android demolishing iPhone in sales” based on NPD’s report. Like any company, Apple is entitled to defend their beliefs in the court of public opinion. Nevertheless, it’s very unusual for them to respond to a single market survey, let alone provide a comment to anyone but big media. Remember, this is a company that has built a name for itself by not responding to media inquiries and keeping the majority of journalists in the dark, except a few columnists privileged with direct access to Apple executives.

The fact Apple provided a quote to the Loop rather than challenge NPD’s survey in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal tells me NPD may be onto something here. Also, Apple hasn’t denied domestic Android sales from NPD’s report. But that’s the beauty of statistics – one can always interpret the results in many different ways.